Board on a Plain: Where has all the rebounding gone?

Post by **jwoo** » March 19th, 2025, 2:17 pm

I was avoiding doing my job today and was curious about just how bad the rebounding situation is right now — everyone is griping about there not being enough quality bigs to go around, I wanted to look at that theory a little bit and just list out the top rebounding letter grades and think about scarcity.

SO: I applied the very non-scientific method of going through every SLN roster and tiering out players based on their rebounding letter grade, with the intention of just getting a head count of how many actual good rebounders are left and thinking about comparative value.

There are a couple guys in the NDL but I was too lazy to go down there and look. Here is the list:

A-grade (Three Players)

Darius Bazley (DET)
Andre Drummond (IND)
Ivica Zubac (GSW)

A-minus (41 players)

Precious Achiuwa (GSW)
Bam Adebayo (LAL)
Steven Adams (SAS)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIN)
Deandre Ayton (PHX)
Udoka Azubuike (WAS)
Anthony Bennett (DET)
Goga Bitadze (SAC)
Bismack Biyombo (NYK)
Brandon Clarke (CLE)
John Collins (SAS)
Anthony Davis (WAS)
Zach Edey (ORL)
Joel Embiid (DAL)
Bruno Fernando (CHI)
Dan Gafford (NYK)
Rui Hachimura (ORL)
Willy Hernangomez (IND)
Jonathan Isaac (CHA)
Amir Johnson (DEN)
Michael Kidd Gilchrist (BOS)
Kevon Looney (BOS)
Robin Lopez (PHX)
Kevin Love (ORL)
Sandro Mamukelashvili (LAC)
Boban Marjanovic (LAC)
Greg Monroe (SEA)
Lloyd Nichols (MIN)
Jusuf Nurkic (MIL)
Jahlil Okafor (UTA)
Jakob Poeltl (LAL)
Dwight Powell (POR)
Julius Randle (SAC)
Domantas Sabonis (DAL)
Day'Ron Sharpe (BOS)
Ben Simmons (SEA)
Jared Sullinger (LAC)
Karl-Anthony Towns (MIN)
Jarred Vanderbilt (TOR)
Hassan Whiteside (NYK)
Robert Williams (MIL)

B-plus (33 players)

Mo Bamba (GSW)
Tarik Black (GSW)
Clint Capela (SAC)
Willie Cauley-Stein (MIL)
Marquese Chriss (SAC)
Boogie Cousins (CLE)
Eddy Curry (WAS)
Dewayne Dedmon (IND)
Luka Doncic (CHI)
Jalen Duren (MIL)
Henry Ellenson (POR)
Rudy Gobert (POR)
Draymond Green (ORL)
Blake Griffin (MIA)
Josh Hart (LAC)
John Henson (SAC)
Richaun Holmes (CHI)
Chet Holmgren (DEN)
LeBron James (PHI)
Walker Kessler (NYK)
Skal Labissiere (WAS)
Thon Maker (SEA)
Nerlens Noel (CHI)
Bobby Portis (TOR)
Kristaps Porzingis (DAL)
Neemias Queta (DEN)
Mitchell Robinson (SAS)
Thomas Robinson (DEN)
Pascal Siakam (CLE)
Jalen Smith (PHI)
Jonas Valanciunas (DET)
Noah Vonleh (DAL)
Mark Williams (LAC)

Listed wings with B or B-minus rebounding (20 players)

Ryan Anderson (HOU)
Michael Beasley (DAL)
Miles Bridges (IND)
Chris Boucher (MIA)
Isaac Bonga (MIA)
Kevin Durant (ATL)
Josh Giddey (VAN)
Aaron Gordon (PHX)
Tobias Harris (SAS)
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (VAN)
John Konchar (NYK)
Lauri Markkanen (POR)
Markieff Morris (LAL)
Semi Ojeleye (CHA)
Chuma Okeke (IND)
Kelly Oubre (DEN)
Jabari Parker (BOS)
Michael Porter Jr. (LAL)
Ausar Thompson (CLE)
Justise Winslow (WAS)

WHEW, that took way longer than I expected.

Obviously some of these names are either on death's doorstep, don't play, or don't actually exist (looking at you LLOYD NICHOLS!)

So to get a better sense of how many of these guys are actually impacting games, I decided to waste more time go through again and filter for minutes played.

Here are those lists again, purely listing players playing north of 25 minutes before the Day 66 sim (arbitrary cutoff, but basically just controlling for who's earning big minutes, obviously there are some teams where the depth up front limits that, but w/e):

A-Grade: Bazley, Drummond, Zubac

These three are the best rebounders in the game at this point, hard to argue.

A-Minus: 25 players

Precious Achiuwa (GSW)
Bam Adebayo (LAL)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIN)
Deandre Ayton (PHX)
Udoka Azubuike (WAS)
Anthony Bennett (DET)
Goga Bitadze (SAC)
Bismack Biyombo (NYK)
Anthony Davis (WAS)
Zach Edey (ORL)
Joel Embiid (DAL)
Rui Hachimura (ORL)
Jonathan Isaac (CHA)
Michael Kidd Gilchrist (BOS)
Kevon Looney (BOS)
Boban Marjanovic (LAC)
Greg Monroe (SEA)
Jusuf Nurkic (MIL)
Jahlil Okafor (UTA)
Jakob Poeltl (LAL)
Domantas Sabonis (DAL)
Day'Ron Sharpe (BOS)
Ben Simmons (SEA)
Karl-Anthony Towns (MIN)
Robert Williams (MIL)

This list got cut nearly in half!

B-plus: 18 players

Mo Bamba (GSW)
Clint Capela (SAC)
Willie Cauley-Stein (MIL)
Marquese Chriss (SAC)
Boogie Cousins (CLE)
Luka Doncic (CHI)
Rudy Gobert (POR)
Blake Griffin (MIA)
Josh Hart (LAC)
John Henson (SAC)
Chet Holmgren (DEN)
LeBron James (PHI)
Thon Maker (SEA)
Nerlens Noel (CHI)
Kristaps Porzingis (DAL)
Mitchell Robinson (SAS)
Pascal Siakam (CLE)
Jalen Smith (PHI)

Again, this list gets cut nearly in half.

Listed wings with B or B-minus rebounding (12 players)

Miles Bridges (IND)
Chris Boucher (MIA)
Isaac Bonga (MIA)
Kevin Durant (ATL)
Aaron Gordon (PHX)
Lauri Markkanen (POR)
Semi Ojeleye (CHA)
Chuma Okeke (IND)
Kelly Oubre (DEN)
Jabari Parker (BOS)
Michael Porter Jr. (LAL)
Justise Winslow (WAS)

Most of these guys are proven commodities who do things other than rebound, but it doesn't hurt that they are good at boards.

What can we actually take away from this?

It's tough to make a sweeping call — I am curious what others think of this information/if anything I'm not thinking of sticks out — but I do kind of find it notable that there were only 45 players who fell above the 25 MPG threshold for A/A-/B+ rebounders (and that included guys like Luka, LeBron, Josh Hart and Simmons who aren't positonally bigs). So for those counting at home, that's basically less than two legitimate butts per team. Of course, there are plenty of young guys sporting B rebounding who will likely get to the B+ threshold in the next few seasons, but Ashes is making fewer-out-of-the-box board men than ever in this era and rightfully so. Many of these guys are in the back half of their careers, too.

Should bigs have outsized value in trades? Should teams not be worried about this as much since there aren't that many good bigs to go around anyway, lowering the baseline for what makes a good rebounder?

Anyway, that's all for now — the RP from this article will go directly into, you guessed it, someone's rebounding.

Post by **Boredo** » March 19th, 2025, 2:36 pm

Such a sick article title

Post by **Merv** » March 19th, 2025, 2:40 pm

Josh Hart. Underrated

Post by **Merv** » March 19th, 2025, 2:40 pm

Miss you Zu

Post by **Hoff** » March 19th, 2025, 2:49 pm

Merv wrote: March 19th, 2025, 2:40 pm Josh Hart. Underrated

Post by **Hoff** » March 19th, 2025, 2:50 pm

Joel is and isn't on PHI

Post by **Josh** » March 19th, 2025, 3:35 pm

this is a great use of pankin's google sheets!

brandon ingram is getting 7.6 boards a game from the 2. The only SG with more than him is oladipo

Post by **jwoo** » March 19th, 2025, 3:43 pm

Josh wrote: March 19th, 2025, 3:35 pm this is a great use of pankin's google sheets!

brandon ingram is getting 7.6 boards a game from the 2. The only SG with more than him is oladipo

lol i goofed and i did not use his google sheet at all

Post by **Clinton** » March 20th, 2025, 11:01 am

Missed Precious for the A- group

Post by **jwoo** » March 20th, 2025, 11:20 am

Clinton wrote: March 20th, 2025, 11:01 am Missed Precious for the A- group

Ok Smeagol

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